Rock Legend Stevie Nicks Wows Seneca Niagara Crowd

Rock Legend Stevie Nicks Wows Seneca Niagara Casino By Melanie Hulick The stage was set to receive one of Rock and Rolls best female vocalists at Seneca Niagara Events Center Saturday, July 7th, 2012.The sold out crowd was already in a frenzy before Nicks even took to the stage, as the lights went down and Nicks began singing a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” from backstage while the band members, one by one, took their places, followed by Nicks, to flashing strobe lights and cheers loud enough to bring the house down. As the song went on, images of some of rock music’s greatest appeared on a floor to ceiling screen as the backdrop. The faces that only require a last name like Joplin, Jagger, Dylan, Bowie and Frampton. And let’s not leave out Fleetwood Mac, where Nicks hit the big time. Nicks delivered a show that had something for everyone of her fans with some Fleetwood Mac hits, some solo works and the purpose of the 2012 tour, her newest material from her album “In Your Dreams”. The singer-songwriter made it clear when she said, “This is not a greatest hits tour. I will do some songs from my solo career, and yes, some from my Fleetwood Mac days, but this tour is about my new album. I have to move on to new things, move forward,” she added. Telling the audience some of the back stories, like when and where a certain song was written, along with the meaning behind the lyrics, enabled us to get a glimpse into the songstresses life that maybe gave some a different interpretation of the hits we’ve loved all these years. Weaving her way through the well known hits like “Dreams”, which was Fleetwood Mac’s only #1 hit, “Rhiannon”, an exceptional duet with her vocal coach, Steve Real, joining her to sing the Don Henley parts on “Leather and Lace”, “Secret Love”, “Gold Dust Woman”, “Ghosts Are Gone” and a rendition of “Stand Back”, in which she seemed almost childlike as she appeared from a blocked-off area on stage set up as a dressing room, with the signature black poncho with gold circles she used to wear during her Fleetwood Mac days, saying, “I brought it out of the trunk for a couple months and it will go right back in after the tour". There were a couple of poignant moments as well, which included her story of visiting with 30 soldiers and their families on her day off at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. Spending seven hours with them she came away with the chorus of her work in progress song “Soldier’s Angel”, which was the only unfinished 4 lines of the song. “This is the song I am most proud of,” said Nicks before she sang it. “After my visit I consider myself a soldier’s mother,” she added. Her performance of one of her most well known hits, “Landslide” was another touching part of the show, as she told the audience how she wrote the song one evening in Aspen, Colorado while there with friends, when she skipped dinner plans because she just felt like staying behind to “look out over the snow covered hills”, as it says in the song she would pen that night. As Nicks sang the song a quiet hush fell over the room listening and watching photos of her and her family through the years on the screen behind her.Her eight piece band was very tight and complimented her trademark raspy voice with drummer Jimmy Paxson and Nicks’ long time lead guitarist and music director, Waddy Wachtel, shining on the highlight of the night, “Edge of Seventeen”. Playing over a two hour set, Nicks showed she still has it going on and still really enjoys her audience and fans, which she reinforced as she took her time going the entire length of the stage greeting people and shaking hands on her way off. Nicks reappeared to cheers for her encore number called “Love Is”. “I’m not going to tell you the story behind this one because I want you to leave here with what it means to you personally,” she said as she sang with little accompaniment.This was my first time seeing Nicks in concert and I was sure she would put on a good show, but I wasn’t expecting what I noticed. At times it was as if she was almost possessed by the music… not in a the sense of it being a bad thing, but like you could almost see the music enter her body as she would “air” play the different instruments along with the musicians, fingering the chords like she was the instrument herself, and she would sway as if she was being directed to in a way from inside her. Then I thought… music is something you hear, but maybe if you could “see” music, this is what it would look like.